Monday, September 30, 2013

This happens every time I need to get an IV, or have a lot of blood taken:

It's not the nurse's fault. I am incredibly white, especially the underside of my arms, so really my veins do look great. You can pretty much see all of them.

Usually when someone has super visible veins it means they are nice and strong and easily poked.

But my veins are dirty little liars. They are weak and small and flimsy.

I know the nurse is trying to save me from having an annoying and more painful IV in my hand, but it just can't happen.

Although, this last time, when I was in the hospital having McGirlie, the nurse believed me and just put the IV in my hand on the first poke. That was nice! (And by nice I mean I immediately started pestering people about exactly how soon I could get the IV taken out.) But at least there were no extra pokes!

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Yesterday I had to fight with our internet provider. Dealing with phone support is a special skill that I have. I'm good at it, but I don't like to do it. This is how I imagine the most talented barn-cleaner in the world feels.

Phone support is painful because your first contact isn't even human. It is an aggressively friendly female robot, who cannot understand anything I say.

I usually just keep pressing 0 until I can escape from this horrible invention. This brings you to the phone-underling:

This person cannot help you, (they also might not want to help you because they are confined to a small corral in a sticky chair and they resent your freedom) but in all likelihood they are simply unable to help you because their overlords don't give them any real power. If you are giving money to the company this person is easy to deal with, but if you want money back they are pretty much impossible to deal with.

It doesn't matter how reasonable your request is, the underling will act like you are asking for their first-born child. They will also tell you there is no possible way that your request can ever happen EVER, and when you ask to speak to their manager they will act like you are annoying and wasting everyone's time. Just keep asking for the manager and they will have to forward you on.

This brings you to overlord #1:

Overlord #1 is probably not to far from the corrals, but they have their own desk with a less sticky chair, thus they are often in a good mood and will frequently do what you want right away with no argument. (This is in spite of the fact that the underling told you that it was 100% IMPOSSIBLE FOREVER for this to happen.)

Sometimes though, (like when I wanted to not pay $600 to change a flight) the first overlord is a hard-nose.

You may feel discouraged, but take heart! You have a distinct advantage in that as long as you don't swear, or agree to hang up, the overlord cannot hang up on you. And even though this overlord pretends to be all tough, they are actually all soft. You see, they have grown accustomed to not being on the phone all day. Their chair is soft, and Candy Crush is calling to them.

So grab a snack and prepare to filibuster until you get your way. At this point I like to imagine that I am a D-list celebrity like Kim Kardashian. If she wanted to get out of a cancellation fee, or make a tiny change to her flight do you think they would hassle her about it? No. My dad didn't even help OJ Simpson get away with murder, so I deserve at least as good of treatment as Kim does.

If this overlord steadily insists that they cannot help you, you should start to ask for their supervisor. Sometimes they will be crafty and say, "I am the manager here." but you can easily get around this by asking, "And there is no one, in the entire company to whom you report?" or, "Well I need to talk to someone who has the authority to make this exception." If they have the authority to help you they will do it to avoid sending you up to Overlord #2. (Also having authority appeals to them and they will secretly get a little excited at the opportunity to use their slight powers.)

If they send you to Overlord #2, your troubles are soon to be over because #2 has a super comfy chair, almost never talks to customers, and is very easily persuaded to give you money. Good luck!

Thursday, September 05, 2013

I have a secret affliction. I can explain! It all started about a month ago:

This pregnancy has been a lot more rough than my first one. I think part of that is related to chasing around a rambunctious toddler instead of sitting at my cushy desk all day.

And the other part is that this new baby seems to be training for some kind of ultimate fighting match. She is especially fond of pummeling the nerve in my right leg. I started having a lot of contractions, and the only cures are:
1. Have a baby
or
2. Sit sit sit sit.

I did not like it, not one little bit. There is only so much you can do while sitting all the time, and finally I caved and started playing a really stupid game called Candy Crush. Maybe you have heard of it? I had long been annoyed by it constantly spamming me on Facebook, but I started playing anyway. McBaby actually likes the sounds it makes and will sit by me and play when I am playing it, bonus!

I am super embarrassed that I play such a mindless time wasting game. I am SUPER paranoid that despite my best efforts I will accidentally hit "Share" and spam all my loved ones on Facebook with my Candy Crush achievements, thus simultaneously spamming people and revealing that I am a candy crushing couch potato.

I've been trying to hide it, but really, it was only a matter of time until you found out anyway, thanks to McBaby's new favorite interjection.

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McEwens

I am Rachel McEwen, even though I have pictures of Bryce McEwen on here he actually has very little to do with this blog. That is why it is full of girly stuff. We live in California and are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We like to play outside and do projects of all shapes and sizes. I am making this blog to chronicle our projects big and small.